Halloween Author Invasion Day #8 — Happy Halloween with Jeanne Stein

Happy Halloween! Today is the very last day of the Halloween Author Invasion. I hope everyone had a good time and thank you for helping to make the event a success. A few contests are still open.

To end our festivities we welcome Urban Fantasy Author Jeanne Stein, author of the Anna Strong bounty hunter vampire series. She’ll be giving away two books to a lucky poster, a copy of her latest book Chosen and a copy of Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker.

Jeanne Stein is the bestselling author of the Urban Fantasy series, The Anna Strong Chronicles. She lives in Denver where she is active in the writing community, belonging to Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. In 2008 she was named RMFW’s Writer of the Year and last year, her character, Anna Strong, received a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for Best Urban Fantasy Protagonist. The sixth in the Anna Strong series, Chosen, will be released in August 2010. She has numerous short story credits, as well. The most recent, The Ghost of Leadville, is included in the Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance, Vol. II. (Running Press Books) and Elizabeth and Anna’s Big Adventure included in A Girl’s Guide to Guns and Monsters (DAW Books). She is also one of the editor’s of RMFW’s award-winning anthology, Broken Links, Mended Lives.

Happy Halloween
by Jeanne Stein

Thanks to the Lolitas of Steamed for inviting me though I find it odd to be posting on Halloween on a steam punk blog!! For two reasons, actually. I don’t write steampunk though I love the ideas and love to read it. The second reason is that I’ve never been a big fan of Halloween.

Oh, when I was a kid, we did the costumes and trick or treat thing. And in high school there were the parties. In college, I was much too “serious” a student to join a sorority. I was engaged to a military man so campus life for me consisted of attending classes and the occasional civil rights demonstration (this was the sixties, after all).

Then it was onto life on various military posts. Again, there were parties, but I can’t ever remember wearing a costume to one. When I had my daughter, we did fun things with her. But in the way of the world, she grew up and wanted to do her own Halloween things with her own friends.

So it was back to ignoring the holiday.

Then I started writing vampire stories. In formulating one story line, I discovered that Halloween had an interesting history rich in plot possibilities. What was that history?

1. Present day Halloween traditions can be traced to the ancient Celtic Day of the Dead.

2. Wearing costumes and giving out food were protection from, and an offering to, the souls of the dead, believed to be out and about on that day. Dressing like fairies, witches and demons and performing antics in exchange for food is the genesis of trick or treating.

3. The customs of bobbing for apples and carving pumpkins go back even further to the holiday of Samhain (pronounced sah-ween), a celebration of the harvest.

4. Samhain was the biggest and most important holiday of the Celtic year. It was the day the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld. People sacrificed animals, fruits and vegetables and lit bonfires to aid the dead on their journey and keep them away from the living.

5. Christian missionaries were responsible for changing the practices of the Celtic people. In 601 AD, they assigned November 1st as All Saints Day, a substitute for Samhain, to replace the Celtic’s own holiday. But Samhain never died out completely. The evening before was (and is) still celebrated as the day of the traveling dead.

Of course, I’ve simplified and abbreviated the history. There’s a wealth of information on line if you want to learn more. The point is on October 31st, the dead are thought to be able to walk the earth. I used it as the chance for a witch to call up a demon. There are countless other possibilities.

Halloween takes on a much more exotic and dangerous element if you look at it as an ancient people once did. Maybe that’s why I’ve never liked the holiday. The little kiddies in the cute witch or devil costumes look harmless. But what about the adult in that Jason mask? Or that spooky figure dressed up like a demon? This is the one night of the year that you can’t always trust your eyes.

So, how about you? Do you love Halloween? Do you dress up and set those inhibitions free? What costume have you worn that was (or is) your absolute favorite? Or are you like me, sulking in the dark on Halloween, lights out, waiting for the night to be over? Send a comment and you might win a prize (treat, not trick). I’m offering a signed copy of Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker (because this is a steampunk blog, after all) and to tempt you to the dark side, a copy of Chosen, my newest vampire novel.

In Greece we don’t celebrate it, but we have a similar celebration called “Apokries” which I guess is more like the Carnival of Rio De Janeiro, because we are allowed to dance in the streets and do crazy things and dress up as anything we like, not just scary things.
Seriously, we can dress up like a werewolf, or a princess or even a telescope! lmao

Well, I must admit that so far I have dresses up as: a cowgirl, Red Riding Hood, a vampire, a gift, a policewoman, an indian, Princess of the Night, Tinkerbell, a cat, a tiger, a hotel maid, a goth and too many others to mention! lol

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I can’t say I LOVE Halloween, but I have young kids so it’s fun watching them be excited. I always had lame home made costumes as a kid and was only allowed to Trick or Treat at the next door neighbors and across the street neighbors (three houses) so it was mostly a chance to be more embarrassed of my super protective parents.
I vow to be better with my kids and we do our neighborhood, or until the buckets are so heavy that the adults have to carry them. At least that’s what we did last year…
Thanks for the giveaway’s!

Ah, I love Halloween. I get to see kiddies dressed in the absurd, the remarkable, the hidden, the not so hidden. I see smiles on adult faces, and everyone but the most fanatic treat the holiday as nonsectarian.

It’s the one time even the most upright tell ghost stories and maybe let themselves believe in magic.

What ISN’T there to love about getting to be out on lovely, crisp fall evenings and haunting the neighborhood!
(Yes, I live in a small, old fashioned neighborhood secluded in an industrial park where we all have a lot of barking dogs)

The last five years, we’ve dressed up as a family with the little girl next door. The last two years, her mom joined us. The first year we went as Scooby and the gang, complete with cardboard mystery machine. The second year we went as Harry Potter “First Years” Hagrid led with the lamp. I was McGonagall with the sorting hat. Then we did Star Wars. Last year we were Mario Bros characters. This year we went as a campfire and s’mores. I was firewood, H was fire. Then we had a chocolate bar, marshmallow, and graham cracker. My oldest is a gluten free kiddo. Dressing up together for contests helped take the sting out of not getting candy.

I do love Halloween, and I’ve always enjoyed handing out treats to the little ones. I don’t usually dress up, I’m not that imaginative, so I can never think of a costume. This year however, I’m with you and sulking in the dark, waiting for it to all be over. I’m presently unemployed, and besides the fact that I just can’t really afford to spend the money on treats, my neighborhood in the last few years has been inundated with older kids from all over the place, coming in by the carload. A lot of them don’t even wear costumes and I decided last year that I’d had enough, I’m not going to participate. Next year, if I have the funds, I’ll hand out treats to the little ones that come really early, and that will be it.
I do hope I win, because I’d really love a copy of Chosen, and Cherie’s book, Boneshaker, they’re both on my wish list.

Thank you for sharing all your thoughts on Hallowe’en and on the breif over view of the different beliefs of the holiday. It is always interesting to learn new things (or old as the case may be) about something so traditional.

My favourite costume? It has a bit of a story: I am the oldest of 4 girls and there is 12years between me and the youngest. My mom was staying home to give out candy & my dad needed help riding heard on the other 3. I hadn’t planned on dressing up but the baby insisted that I do. So, my father quickly helped me make a costume. In the end, my hair was in braids that stuck out all over the place (thanks to wire coat hangers), my face was painted white with all kinds of designs (thanks to my mothers make up bag) and I had on a white paper suit (from my dad’s construction company). We decided I was an alien!